Homeschool Garden Club - Robin

When bird watching how do we know which birds we are looking at? One of the ways is to learn who might be visiting and what they look like. You can spot Robins all year round in our gardens.

As you may be aware I have a lovely family of robins that hang out in my garden and who entertain me for hours, I talk about them enough so you should have some ideas on how to identify robins.

Robins are a small brown bird with a red breast and a white belly. When the Orchard Training Homeschool Garden are out and about in the garden we can tell the difference between the older robins and the younger ones in their build and colour. The adults teach the younger ones to come closer to us as we weed. We love them singing in the trees around us as we learn in the garden. The song is a distinctive tune.

However, it should be said that despite their lovely cute appearance, robins are very territorial and we see them chase off any birds they don't know from the garden.

According to Garden Bird Watch data, which has been collected since 1995, they are most frequently seen during January in around 93% of gardens, followed by February. So, we have a very good chance of seeing the robins now.

Robins nest between March and July, which is when they seem very busy in the garden collecting the bugs we expose when weeding.

As homeschoolers, we can encourage robins in to our own gardens by giving them the food they love, like mealworms. Make sure you have some fresh, clean supply of water for them. We can also put up nest boxes for them in your garden.

The main predator for the robin is the Sparrowhawk which means it is part of the kites, hawks and eagle family group. All of which we look out for on our Walking the River Thames adventures.

History Link

Robins were traditionally seen on christmas cards. Although what we have found is we can see robins all year round. It is thought Royal Mail Postman in Victorian times used to wear red uniforms in the winter months. They were nicknamed ‘Redbreasts’ after the robins. As the postmen delivered Christmas cards some how it all got mixed up and robins ended up as one of the main ideas of Christmas cards.